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This week LMU and the staff of the William H. Hannon Library welcome the 2015 Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL) Scholars. These 22 academic and research librarians will be staying on campus and participating in a research training workshop from July 12-24. Selected from 64 applicants, these librarians come from 11 states, representing all parts of the country and many functional areas of academic and research libraries. IRDL 2015 is the second year of a three-year project funded by a grant from the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to train and support novice librarian-scholars in the completion of a research study.

The center-piece for each of the three cohorts is the two-week research "bootcamp" led in the library's Von der Ahe Suite by two experienced researchers, anthropologist Greg Guest and San Jose State University School of Information (SJSU) faculty, Lili Luo; with additional instruction by SJSU faculty, Michael Stephens. In addition to lectures and in-class learning activities, the Scholars will be revising their research proposals and forming a research community to support one another's work. Over the next twelve months the Project Directors and instructors will follow the progress of the Scholars as they implement their research, offer support as they analyze findings and write results, and celebrate with them as they complete their projects.

06/03/2015

This summer, the Department of Archives and Special Collections will continue its tradition of hosting an exhibit curated by library student workers. For this year’s exhibit, From Their Perspective III: Imagining the LMU Student Through Yearbooks, we asked our student curators to choose a yearbook from University Archives, imagine what life might have been like as a student during that time, and reflect on how that differs from life as a current LMU student. Students also chose a spread in the yearbook to accompany their caption in the gallery’s display cases.

The exhibition includes student observations on pop culture, societal changes in gender and race equality, diversity on campus, and the enduring value of education and community service at LMU.

Student curators include:

Sarai Bogoratt

Lauren Brown

Mikayla Campbell

Marisol Castellanos

Wesley Christian

Mario Gallardo

Cynthia Garcia

Paolo Gonzalez

Julia Guanzon

Ben Imperato

Shin Eui Park

Alex Peroots

Pamela Rios

Alyssa Venezia

Bri Wong

From Their Perspective III: Imagining the LMU Student Through Yearbooks will be on display from June 1 – July 31 2015.

05/27/2015

Long before everyone had a smart phone in their pocket, the financial livelihood of the American workplace was managed using these (at the time) state of the art mechanical accounting machines.

Through August 13, come to level 3 of the library to take a look (and touch) some of these marvelous machines.

This exhibit (curated by Dr. John Wholihan, Professor Emeritus, LMU College of Business Administration) is designed to...

Show the development and evolution of early adding business machines, from the Abacus to mechanical and electric machines.

Connect the mechanical era to the computer era through brief histories of several companies such as Remington Rand, Burroughs, Monroe, Victor, Underwood, Marchant, R.C. Allen, Todd, and Comptometer.

The small, hand-held devices we use today evolved out of the mechanical age. From hand-cranked adding machines to electric machines, to electronic desktop calculators, to punch cards, to advanced computers, each generation added both simplicity and complexity to our work with numbers and words.’

In this evolution some small companies became large through international growth and merger. Other companies became less competitive and no longer exist. Still others changed markets and products and survive today at least in name. Display items demonstrate this point.

The notable mergers among the companies represented in this display involve Burroughs and Remington Rand. In 1955 Remington Rand was acquired by the Sperry Corporation, becoming Sperry Rand Corporation, and later simply Sperry Corporation. Burroughs merged with Sperry Corporation in 1986 to form Unisys. Today, Unisys is a leader in the area of data security.

05/21/2015

Why not have a conversation with your friends & coworkers about the fascinating history of the city we live in, participate in this campus-wide program, and be ready for author Nina Revoyr's visit to LMU on November 3, all at the same time?

We now have two Book Club in a Bag kits available for checkout by members of the LMU community. Each kit comes in a convenient (and attractive, if we do say so ourselves) tote, and includes ten paperback copies of Southland. Each bag can be checked out for three weeks at a time.

05/19/2015

If you’re in need to get away to some exotic destination, and/or looking for ways to cool down from the summer heat (when it finally arrives!), you don’t need to look any further! Chillax like the South Koreans do during their dreadfully sweltering summers: by means of stories about spooks, terrifying thrills, and horror, all genres that ought to successfully knock the temperature down but also have your small-hairs go up.

In Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman, read about Natalie Waite, her suspenseful story being “loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.”

If you fancy the UK, travel to England through Phil Hogan’s A Pleasure and a Calling, where you will meet a seemingly normal estate agent called Mr. Heming. He sells houses for a living, nothing abnormal there. But, Mr. Heming has kept every key to every house he has ever sold, and keeps watch over all the homeowners.

In Emma Donoghue’s Room, travel to Ireland and read a story that is very similar to the infamous and disturbing (Josef) Fritzl case of 2008, unsettlingly told from a small child’s point of view.

This is just a small sample of what we have for you to browse. Any selection within this collection (located in the library lobby) will take you to all sorts of places for free, and also introduce you to a murderer, a paranormal entity, or a psychopath, all guaranteed to give you lasting chills. So come, travel via book, if you dare.